Prologue

Istanbul Airport

You’ll never leave. Death awaits you here. Believe me, fate is dogging your every step. It is the wavering reflection on the tile in front of you. It is the shadow on the pillar that you pass. If you listen, you will hear it breathing behind you. Your gaze passes over me but you no longer recognize me. I’m the one whose life you threw away.

How far you’ve flown to come back to me, to come back within my reach. You are a dead woman.

You have found a perverse sense of accomplishment in destroying the lives of others. No more. Happiness and contentment will turn to ash. Your shriveled heart will be ripped from your chest and roasted in the flames of hell.

You made me suffer, and I’ll make sure that you will suffer. You made me lose those closest to me. You will lose those closest to you.

You left me with a future that was no more than a dark, starless night. You assumed I would die, but I am not dead. All this time I have been waiting here for your return, and I will have my rightful vengeance.

I’ll forgive you then…when you are dead.

One

Christina

 The black pickup truck comes out of nowhere, and headlights explode in a spray of glass. As the car spins, my head snaps to the side, and I’m slammed hard against the steering wheel. No. No. The baby. Please stop. Make the car stop. Suspended in a world out of control, I try to make some sense out of what is happening.

Like a rag doll, I’m flying from side to side, hitting the door hard before getting jerked forward. The belt tightens around my hips. My child. Is the belt enough to protect the baby cocooned in my womb?

Jamming my arms against the steering wheel, I try to force my distended belly away from it, create some space, and shield my baby. I press back against the seat as hard as I can until the spinning stops.

“We’re okay, sweetheart. We’re okay.” She has to be scared. I’m scared. My heart beat drums in my ears, muffling the desperate cries of the woman in my car. It takes a moment to realize the voice belongs to me.    

Bright lights flash in the passenger side just before the next avalanche of disaster arrives. Someone T-bones me. The windows shatter, showering my face and body with pebbles of glass, and the car rolls over. God, no. Don’t let her die. Please. Save her. Don’t let her die. The airbag bursts open and hits me with a blinding blow to the face and chest, smashing my arms against me.

Everything comes to a halt—time, the ugly screech and grind of brakes, the car horns. We survived…or are we dead? It’s surreal. In my mind, I’m not even in the car. I’m a detached onlooker, gazing down at a mangled vehicle with a pregnant woman inside.

Save them. Please save them. I need to get them out. My feet don’t move. My body refuses to follow directions. I blink and I’m back inside the car, hanging, suspended by the seat belt that’s digging into my neck. The only sound is the creak of the roof as the car rocks on the pavement…and my own gasping breaths. Shards and pebbles of glass are everywhere, and there’s blood on the deflated airbag.

You’re okay. We’re okay. Shouldn’t I be feeling pain? I was coming from Jax’s funeral. Maybe I’m as dead as Jax.

The smell of tires and gasoline burns my nose. The coppery taste in my mouth is blood, and I spit it out.  

Footsteps approach and someone is asking muffled, unintelligible questions. Turning my head toward the sound, my throat struggles to push the words free.

“I’m pregnant. Eight months pregnant. Save her.”

A hand touches my shoulder. There’s so much blood all around, and I can’t focus on the face of the person talking. We couldn’t have survived the accident. Hope withers and shrivels my heart.

“One casket. My baby should be buried with me in one casket.”

“You’ll be fine.”

Sirens and flashing lights approach. The car is a twisted pile of metal and broken glass. No one inside could have survived the accident.

“No cremation.”

Disembodied voices join the first one. Words become clearer.

“We’ve got you.” 

I close my eyes. I want to believe them. They’ve got us. I keep repeating the words in my head, wishing for my unborn child to hear them. Four weeks until our due date, but the doctor had said she could come anytime. She’s perfect. All should go well.

All had gone well, until today. Moments from the past eight months flood my mind. Hearing her first heartbeat, the hiccups that make my entire stomach jump. The feeling of her toes digging into my ribs. The kicks. The constant kicks to remind me that she’s there, taking care of me as I watch over her.

Kick me now. Please kick me. Tell me you’re okay.

They have me out of the car. All the EMTs are talking at once as they lift me onto a gurney. The glass crunches under the rolling wheels, and then I’m in the ambulance.

Sharp cramps hit me. My underwear is soaked. I know what’s happening. “First pregnancy. I’m in labor.” They would want to know. My voice is scratchy and sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a well. “Save her. If it’s her or me, save her. Please.”

 “We’ve got you. Both of you.”

I’m a broken record, saying the same things again and again, but I feel myself fading in and out. Someone is asking me whom to call. Did they say husband, or did I imagine it? 

“No…no husband. Kyle doesn’t want her.”

I force my eyes open and look into the blurred face of a woman moving beside the gurney. The ceiling lights behind her head are blinding. We’re already in the hospital, but I don’t remember getting here.

“My mother,” I say to her. “Call my mother.”

~~~~

Hot bile burns like acid in my chest, and my eyes pop open as I sit up. I’m not in a hospital, but for a moment I’m not sure where I am.

I look around, trying to focus, but the memory of the accident is still right there in front of me, refusing to let go.

The sky is bright outside the open windows of the strange room, and the black screen of a TV stares back at me from the wall. My suitcase sits open on the floor next to a portable crib.

Then it all comes back to me. I’m in Istanbul. The flight from Los Angeles arrived late yesterday afternoon. Fourteen hours on the plane and a ten-hour time difference, and I was exhausted, but my brain refused to shut down. Sometime during the night, I dug out the bottle of melatonin pills. I can’t remember if I slept afterward or not. I must have.

Nausea climbs into my throat and, running into the bathroom, I bend over the toilet, heaving and retching. Where I have been, what I have done, where I am going to and what I must do are a blur. I’m traveling through time on a speeding train. There are no stops. No chance for me to catch my breath. No going back.

You have a beautiful girl.

My head is swimming with the lights and humming sounds of the hospital as I sit back on my heels.

She’s eight pounds, one ounce, and twenty-two inches.

My fingers trace the perfect nose, the clump of dark wet hair, the round cheeks.

My body is cold and clammy with sweat, and I pull myself up to lean against the tub. I take deep breaths, trying to settle my stomach.

Smells waft in through the small window over the tub, and I breathe in the aroma of Turkish coffee and spiced, fresh bread. I can’t remember when I last ate. Maybe that’s the problem.

When I stand up, I feel wobbly and hold onto the edge of the sink until the wave of light-headedness passes.

I turn on the shower and watch the water run down the marble tiles. Another memory flashes back. A nurse is holding my arm, helping me take the few steps from the bed to the shower. The sound of my mother’s voice comes from the chair by the window. Do this on your own, Christina. She’ll be right there at the door if you need her.

Every millisecond of the accident plagues me night and day. The crash, the spinning, the tumbling over and over. It all comes back to me every time I get behind the wheel, every time I see a black pickup truck on the road. In the hospital, they had the hardest time finding my veins, and still they took blood every morning. Bruises take shape on my arm, and I blink to make them disappear. A thick fog clouds my mind, and I blame it on the sleeping pills. I don’t like taking them, not even the over-the-counter types.

My stomach is tied in a knot. I step into the shower enclosure, and the water pricks my skin like a thousand needles. Do I want it hot or cold? I can’t decide, so I stand there as water beats down on me, and the swirls and patterns in the tiles blur.

Focusing on my job always takes my mind off the rest of my life, so I think of Externus, Jax and my mother’s company. That’s why I’m in Istanbul. The company is for sale, and we need to come to terms with a buyer and close the deal. I try to recall dates and schedules, but it’s so exhausting. Leaning my head against the tile, I want to shut down every troubling door of my life, but my brain keeps pulling me back to that horrible night. I can’t drag myself clear of that mangled car and the hospital.

The baby’s cry rips through the fog, and I force my head off the tile.

My vision is blurred, but my body reacts immediately. It knows what to do. Instinct kicks in. I shut off the water and grab my robe. My feet are wet, and I slip on the bathroom floor and nearly go down but catch myself somehow.

The baby is wailing between gasping coughs. She’s getting sick. The flight from LA to Istanbul was too long. She’s too young to travel. I shouldn’t have brought her.

I hurry into the bedroom and go directly to the crib. “Hush, Autumn. I’m here, my baby love.”

The morning light streaming through the window blinds me. Gauzy curtains lift in the breeze. Another flash of a memory materializes, and voices fill my head.

You can’t pick her up every time she cries, Christina.

She’s my daughter, Mother. And I’m not you.

I bend over the crib and stop dead. I stare, trying to make sense of this. A roaring sound is building in my ears. The crib is empty, the sheets stretched tightly over a mattress.

“No. No. No. Where are you?”

I whirl and spring toward the mess I made of my own bed last night, tearing off the blankets and the pillows.

“Autumn! Autumn!” My cries echo off the walls.

But I heard her cry. Where is she? Someone took her. Someone picked her up and took her. My eyes are everywhere, searching the empty room. On the door, the security bar is still latched. Panic floods through me. My hotel room is on the third floor, and it’s a long drop to the grassy courtyard below. No one could have come in or gone out that way.

My body is shaking, and tears sting my eyes. I’m hysterical when I punch the button for the front desk. Thankfully, a woman answers in English.

“Call the police. Get a manager up here. Please. Help me. I was in the shower. My baby is missing. Help me. She’s gone. Someone took her.”

The woman’s tone immediately becomes urgent. She fires directions at others in Turkish, and garbled voices come through the phone.

“The manager is coming up to you right now, Miss Hall. I’ll call the police. We’ll find her.” 

The handset slips out of my fingers, and I watch it bounce on the floor. My knees are locked. I can’t move, and my head is about to split open.

Again, headlights and the crash. I’m back in the hospital, and Kyle is furious. She’s mine. My daughter, too. I should have been the first one you called. I can’t argue, so I turn my head away.

“Autumn…sweetheart.” I choke out the words. “Where are you, my love?”

There’s a loud knock at the door, and voices call from the hallway. I don’t feel the floor under my feet as I move to the door and open it.

“We’ve called the police, Miss Hall. Guards are standing at every door. No one will leave the hotel…”

I don’t want to hear what they’re doing. I only want Autumn back.

Bodies bump past each other. I back up to get out of their way and sink into a chair. I rock back and forth, trying to understand what’s happening, but I can’t think. Their voices are so loud, and they’re bombarding me with questions in Turkish and English.

“My child. Gone. She was right there. I was in the shower. I heard her crying. I came out of the bathroom. She was gone.” I say it again and again. “I didn’t leave the room during the night…No….I’m a good mother.”

I don’t see her come in, but I recognize the familiar touch. It’s a poke, actually. I lift my head and feel relief push against the anguish tearing me up inside.

“She’s gone, Mother. Autumn’s gone.” My voice breaks, and I hiccup while struggling to speak. “They took her. Help me find her.”

My mother pulls up a chair and sits facing me. “Christina, breathe.”

Shaking my head, I rock back and forth, unable to catch my breath. “I’m going to throw up.”

“Not in front of all these people. Go into the bathroom.”

Hot and cold, trauma has me shaking. “I can’t move. She’s missing!”

“Think, Christina.” This time her tone is sharp enough to shatter glass.

Turning abruptly to the manager, Elizabeth speaks to him in Turkish. A long pause fills the room. Then, heads nod and eyes dart toward me. There’s more whispering and, one by one, they file out.

“Where are they going?”

“I told you to order room service last night. But you haven’t eaten, have you?” It isn’t a question. Elizabeth closes the door and sits down again.

“What did you say to them? Why did you send them out? Where is Autumn? What has happened to my baby?”

She takes my hand and brushes away a wet clump of hair draping over my eye. “You should have kept on these people about the crib when you checked in. I should have said something to them myself. That was thoughtless.”

The crib? I glance at the crib and at my suitcase. My clothes are spilling out of it. But there are no diapers, no baby clothes, no stroller.

“Tell me about the cry you heard in the shower,” she asks softly. “Did you hear Autumn cry, Christina?”

The panic drains slowly out of me. But as reality reasserts itself, a sharp pain stabs me in the chest.

“No. There was no cry.” I take a deep breath. “There was no baby. I lost her. I lost Autumn…after the accident.”